Aion Update(s)

More Details on Preselection
September 14, 2009 1:56 PM

Aion's release is right around the corner, and our anticipation is running high! The beards and hairstyles of the character creator are groomed and lined up, jostling against each other in eagerness to be picked for your characters in this coming weekend's Preselection and Head Start Programs.

Preselection is a benefit available to anyone who preordered Aion. If you are not sure whether or not you are eligible, simply log in to your NCsoft Master Account to verify that your game account is listed and your account type is not designated as "Beta".

Starting 12:00 p.m. PDT (more) on September 18, 2009, eligible players will be able to start their game clients and log in to create a total of two characters ahead of everyone else. You can name and create these two characters through the standard character creator and be ready to play with these characters right when the game Head Start Program begins (but not beforehand). Preselection will end 9:00 a.m. PDT on September 20, 2009 (more).

Don't miss this great opportunity to claim your character's name before anyone else does. It isn't too late to preorder, even if you have been holding out.

Head Start Gets Detailed
September 15, 2009 3:40 PM

Aion's Head Start is right around the corner. Details surrounding the Preselection program of Aion were very recently announced, but is only one of the benefits of preordering. Those of you who preordered the game will very soon not only be able to access Preselection, where they can create characters and reserve names, but also to leap into the game and explore the world before everyone else. Head Start opens up Aion's full feature set and allows preorder buyers to play the game just as if it was released a couple of days earlier.

Head Start begins on September 20th 12:00 p.m. PDT (more) and runs until release. The official release date of Aion is on September 22nd in North America and September 25th in Europe.

Aion Launch Version!
September 17, 2009 4:34 PM

Greetings!

As we draw closer to tomorrow I wanted to give everyone a brief update on the progress of our live version. We are excited to announce that we will be serving out the final update for you to patch within the next few hours. You will be able to use this version for both our Preselection and our Head Start. We are very excited with our final product and think that you will be as well! Below are the release notes for the patch you will see later today:

- Aion now features all three languages French, German and English. To select your language simply right click on Aion within your launcher and go to Properties->Language Options. Please select which languages you wish to download and which you wish Aion to display.

- After analyzing our open beta test results Aion will not feature GameGuard at launch. We will however continue to pursue ways to effectively utilize GameGuard within Aion in the future. Right now we're focused on providing players with the best possible Aion experience.

- The level cap is now level 50 (previously 45).

- Players will be able to reserve 2 character names during Preselection and create 8 characters in total once Head Start begins and beyond.

- Channels will be set to 10 instances for the beginning 2 zones of each faction. Please note that these will be lowered as characters progress and spread throughout Atreia.

Xaen
Aion Producer

Odd, mine hasn't updated at all, and says that no updates are available. Do I have to manually find the patch?

I assume it will be available no later than noon today since thats when the preselct is suppose to happen.

Patch just downloaded for me. Now for some reason the NCsoft launcher isn't working with Crossover on my MAC. I have to jump over to my Windows machine to update it there :-(

Server Queues and Course of Action
From www.AionOnline.com

At NCsoft our commitment is to making the MMO player experience the best it can be. And while Aion has seen a very successful launch that has exceeded our expectations in many ways, we are aware of the longer than usual queue times that players have experienced on some of the servers. This is due to the initial rush of players that we?ve seen in the early days of the game?s launch in Europe and North America.

Since the opening of Head Start this past weekend, we?ve have been heavily focused on striking the delicate balance between managing busy servers with queue times versus overcompensating by adding new servers too quickly that are then underpopulated and don?t deliver a fun experience for players. We did indeed see an initial rush on the first days of Head Start which resulted in longer than desired queue times for some of our servers, and we are working around the clock to alleviate this. In fact, we are happy to confirm we have increased our server caps and are adding an additional server in both North America and Europe by this weekend, and we will continue to evaluate adding additional servers.

That said, we do have alternate servers where players are experiencing lower queue times. People can get a real-time update and select that choice on our website at: Aion? Online :: Server Statistics

We continue to monitor issues closely and strive to address player feedback quickly to ensure the best possible experience.

Official Aion Forums having issues:
Hey guys,

I just received an e-mail from Ayase concerning the official Aion forums:


Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally Posted by Ayase

Hey guys,
I just wanted to let you know that we have had a problem since launch that prevents us from making Administrator replies on our official forums. This means that we simply cannot reply to threads, even if we wanted to. It would be nice if you could communicate this to users somehow, so that they understand that this is why we have practically no official forum presence. We?re working on getting this fixed, but I don?t know how long it will take.

In the meantime we?re trying to keep everyone up to date via Twitter, other forums and IRC. Let me know if you have any questions.
-Ayase

Aion: Head Start Issues Interview
Hey guys,

Brian Knox took some time with MMORPG.com to better explain some of the early access issues we've all been seeing. Have a read and post your -constructive- feedback below. :)





From www.mmorpg.com:

MMORPG.com: Players experienced what were described by some of extremely long queue times to take part in Aion's head start on Sunday. Can you speak to this?

Brian Knox:
With [Sunday]'s launch, we saw a massive influx into the game when we opened the servers for Head Start. It's important to remember that this initial rush is due to everyone trying to get into the game at the same time - this isn't a scenario that's likely to be repeated regularly since it's really just about that initial rush of players trying to gain access to the game. That being said, we are actively monitoring and tracking the stats to ensure optimal experiences for players. As you well know, it's a delicate balance between keep our servers healthy and maintaining a optimal experience for players.


MMORPG.com: Why were queue times necessary at all. As this event was for pre-order customers only, why wasn't it easy to predict exactly how many servers would be necessary to make sure that players weren't waiting in line?

Brian Knox:
There are numbers and stats that help us predict servers. We know what our average percentage of users is per active accounts at a peak time based off our beta events and our other products. We know how many users our servers can handle at capacity, and we know how many users makes for an ideal game play experience in Aion. Most importantly we know that there will never be a time when every single Aion customer wants to log in and play all at once than when we first turn on the servers. All of these go into picking the correct server count and the right time to spin up new servers.

We had to keep max server capacity low at first because everyone was crammed at the starting area. Had we opened it up to everyone, no one could have progressed. As the day went on, we opened up the servers more and more. We want to ensure that our servers are healthy during Head Start, but also once a retail code is applied. These next few days we will be calculating data and weighing the ideal time to open more servers. I think that the community will understand that in a game with PvPvE how important a healthy populated server is and that we do not want to go down the low pop server path...


MMORPG.com What, to the best of your knowledge, was the average wait time for players at its height?

Brian Knox:
Our data indicates around 3 hours for the most popular servers. However, there were servers that never had a queue, as well. Our suggestion is as always go to the low pop/recommended servers.


MMORPG.com: Does NCsoft plan to issue any kind of compensation for players who pre-ordered strictly to gain access on the 20th , two days ahead of launch, only to wait in queue?

Brian Knox:
While there are no plans for compensating players, we are monitoring this closely and do take their feedback very seriously. We're working hard to make this as great a playing experience as possible with the incredible demand we've seen.


MMORPG.com: Does NCsoft currently have any plans to make sure that this scene isn't repeated on retail launch day?

Brian Knox:
We have preparations in place but there is some weathering of the storm that needs to take place. As players start to purchase the product and the initial first day excitement calms down I think you will see better queue times and a better play experience.

Queue Times and Waiting to Play
The popularity of specific servers has caused queues to benecessary. These queues are based on the given server load. The wait times forour more populated servers will be longer than the wait time for less populatedservers. You can use the tracking tools on the Aion website to determine which servers are most populated and which ones will have thelongest or shortest wait times in the login queue. Login queues will shorten (and disappear) over the nextseveral days as players spread out across our currently available servers. We are also working on several ways to alleviate the waittime in the queues.





Faction Balance
We will only be allowing players to create characters of onefaction on each server. For example, if you create an Elyos character on Siel,you will only be able to create Elyos characters on that server. Because ofthis, we will be closely monitoring the faction balance on each server duringlaunch and after. If we see a particular server is starting to becomeunbalanced in favor of one faction, we will temporarily disable charactercreation of that particular faction on the server. Please be aware thistemporary character creation block could change every few hours. If you findyou are unable to create a character of your preferred faction choice, pleasewait a while and try again later. We apologize for any inconvenience this maycause, but we feel this is a necessary step to maintain a well balanced server.





Special Items (Preorder/collectors)
In order to claim either or both the Preorder andCollector’s Edition in-game items, you will need to first make sure theappropriate codes have been applied to your Aion game account, and then claimthe items for your character(s) through our website. After you have claimed the item packs for yourcharacter(s) on our website, you may need to wait a while (possibly up to 12hours) before the items become available in-game. Your item packs will beavailable when you see a small box icon appear in the bottom-right corner ofyour screen next to your compass. You can click the box and a Black CloudTrader will appear to deliver your items. You can click on this NPC to retrieveyour items. If you don’t retrieve all of the items before dismissing the BlackCloud Trader, the items will remain in your normal mailbox.





Cosmetic Surgery NPCs
The Gender Switch and Appearance NPCs are available in game,however, the ability to purchase the tickets used at these vendors is not yetavailable. Please keep an eye on the Aion home page for any information regarding the furtherimplementation of these NPCs.